Kevin Drum 🕸

Gaza is getting worse: Famine is looming in Gaza, the United Nations warns. The World Food Program estimates that 93 percent of the population faces crisis levels of hunger. Disease is spreading rapidly. The World Health Organization predicts that the death toll from sickness and starvation in coming months could eclipse the number of people ...continue reading "Can the US bring in aid to Gaza directly?"

That's not me saying it, it's Donald Trump saying it. Based on a discovery request filed Tuesday night, this is apparently going to be his defense in the classified documents case: The court papers, filed in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., gave the clearest picture yet of the scorched earth legal strategy that ...continue reading "Everybody hates Donald Trump"

How did Christmas turn out for our nation's retailers? Sort of meh: December retail sales were down a fraction of a percent from 2022 but still well above their pre-pandemic trend.

China's crude birth rate dropped again in 2023: China's birth rate dropped from 6.77 per thousand in 2022 to 6.39 in 2023, a decline of 6%. China's net population declined for the first time in 2022 by about one million. In 2023 it declined by 3 million.

As you know, the maternal mortality rate has been increasing steadily in the US. Except, as Noah Smith informs us, it turns out it hasn't. This is a bizarre story. In 2003 the standard US death certificate added a pregnancy checkbox. As more and more states adopted the new certificate, reports of maternal mortality went ...continue reading "Mind blowing: The CDC is publishing maternal mortality figures it knows are wildly wrong"

The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have been attacking Western shipping in the Red Sea. Over at National Review, Charles Cooke says we need to teach them a lesson: We’re trying to get on with our lives peacefully, and they’re interrupting it. And if the consequence of us dealing with it is that they escalate it, ...continue reading "Should we declare all-out war on the Houthis?"

Yesterday Paul Krugman mentioned that over the past couple of years the economy has been especially strong for Black workers. That's true, and the effect has been pretty dramatic. Here's the labor force participation rate, a measure of how many people are working or actively looking for work: For many years, the share of Black ...continue reading "Raw data: Black men in the labor force"

Today I have some good news, some bad news, some good news, and some bad news for you. The good news is that we've reached agreement on a bill that would modestly raise the Child Tax Credit. The bad news is that—of course—Republicans have only agreed to this if it's offset with yet another tax ...continue reading "The Child Tax Credit might be back. But probably not."

This is a rock formation in Colorado called Elephant's Feet. It's pretty obvious to see why, but there are only two of them. Are they the front feet or the back feet?

A perennial favorite of presidential campaigns is the "Rose Garden Strategy." But there are others. Harry Truman adopted a "Whistlestop Strategy" in his 1948 campaign. Richard Nixon was the first to pursue a "50 State Strategy" in 1960. During the COVID pandemic, Joe Biden pioneered the "Basement Strategy." But this year brings something truly new. ...continue reading "Donald Trump announces new 2024 campaign strategy"

In the seminal Heller case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. However, Justice Antonin Scalia warned that the right wasn't unlimited: Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.... Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding ...continue reading "Court rules that guns in the post office are A-OK"

The Supreme Court will be hearing a couple of cases soon that have the potential of undermining something called "Chevron deference." This does not mean we are supposed to pay special attention to Chevron Oil. It refers to a 1984 Supreme Court case that says courts should allow federal agencies to make any reasonable interpretation ...continue reading "Conservatives are taking yet another shot at expertise"

Rick Hasen echoes an opinion today that I've shared for a very long time: Unlike the constitutions of many other advanced democracies, the U.S. Constitution contains no affirmative right to vote.... As we enter yet another fraught election season, it’s easy to miss that many of the problems we have with voting and elections in ...continue reading "Why does the US lack a right to vote?"

Finally, for what it's worth, here's the actual state of the economy in the final quarter of 2023 compared to 2022. I feel like I should hardly need to say this, but everything that should be adjusted for inflation has been. Real GDP growth: 4.9% Unemployment rate: 3.7% Inflation (CPI): 3.2% Inflation (CPI change from ...continue reading "2023 was an all-time great year for the economy"

As long as we're at it, here's what else Republicans think about the economy these days: 58% think the overall economy is poor (vs. 14% for Democrats) 62% think the economy is getting worse (vs. 22% for Democrats) 53% say they are worse off than last year (vs. 18% for Democrats) 50% say they've heard ...continue reading "Here’s what Republicans think of the economy"

I was fooling around with the latest YouGov/Economist poll and marveling anew at how bad Republicans think the economy is. But the most spectacular finding is surely this: 68% of Republicans think unemployment is a serious problem in the US. The unemployment rate last month was 3.7%. It's been under 4% for 24 straight months. ...continue reading "The unemployment rate in 2023 was the lowest in half a century"

A boy and his pail at the beach.

How are our young people doing these days. Are they still stuck in low-paying jobs that require side hustles to make ends meet? Let's take a look. For the entire past decade, the wages of young people have been going up, the ratio of part-time workers has been steadily decreasing, and the number with multiple ...continue reading "Raw data: Wages and employment of the young"

"Global health security" is a measure of how well a country's public health system is prepared to deal with pandemics and infectious diseases generally. Can you guess which country is ranked #1? The US is first by a comfortable margin. In the subcategory dedicated to having a strong public health sector to treat the sick, ...continue reading "The US has the best public health system in the world"

California law says that drivers have to retake the DMV test when they turn 70. Fine. But the test questions have become crazy. They're completely divorced from knowledge of meaningful traffic laws and instead focus on weird trivia. As a result, we've had an endless stream of 70-year-olds wailing about how they've failed the test ...continue reading "Our long California DMV nightmare is over"